World Chompion Group Post

We wanted to create a group post in order to better understand different perspectives. By writing from different points of view, and not discussing the article "The Tyrannosaurus Rex’s Dangerous and Deadly Bite" beforehand, or what we were writing, we came up with four different 100 word observations on one Smithsonian article. By limiting ourselves to only 100 words, we parsed down what we each got out of the article to show how we each individually understood it. Enjoy!

We’ve all seen caricatures of a T. rex with a huge body and head with tiny arms, but this article shows that these massive dinosaurs are not to be messed with. A T. rex theoretically can bite another T. rex in half or mangle it. Today, people flock to museums to see skeletons of the T. rex to appreciate their size and mock their disproportion. Since cloning technologies are being developed, I began to wonder what would happen if a T. rex was reanimated. Certainly it would first devour anyone who teases its awkward size, but what would be next? -Ariel

Smithsonian, like National Geographic, has a pretty superb reputation. They are often viewed as an expert source for archaeological news. Maybe that is why the T. rex’s reputation is so bad: because the science backs it up. As one of their recent articles highlights, a digital model of a T. rex’s skull shows how its bite is a lot stronger than previously assumed. The results showed that the maximum bite force was almost 12,800 pounds, the exact weight of the Apollo Command Module. So pretty heavy. Smithsonian isn’t beating around the bush with how badass the T. rex really was. -Alana

First to catch my eye are the ferocious fangs of T. rex. Imagery is incredibly important in magazines and can pull readers in with a single photograph. This article discussed the biomechanics of the “Bite power” of the infamous Tyrannosaurus rex. The author compared the T. rex’s jaw force of 12,800 pounds to “13 Steinway Model D concert grand pianos.” For those less musically inclined readers, this comparison will most likely alienate them, adding confusion to a seemingly simple subject. Over all this article was relatively well written, yet the analogies seemed strange and boring to me. -Jessie

I would never have believed that there are experts who spend time assessing the strength of dinosaurs’ bites. I cannot see the benefit in having this knowledge. It is interesting but overall useless. A biomechanics expert and a paleontologist worked together to figure that a T. rex named Stan (why do they name dinosaurs?) bit his prey with a maximum bite force of 12,800 pounds. They based their research on birds, which are living dinosaurs (so dinosaurs are not extinct?) and crocodilians, the closest living cousins to Dinosauria. Calculations and explanations for how they came to this conclusion are excluded. -Xue

Photo from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Tyrannosaurus-Rexs-Dangerous-and-Deadly-Bite-169806936.html#